Guests of the program “Nemtsova. Interview” – Dmitry Vrubel and Victoria Timofeeva, a creative ensemble of contemporary artists. In Russia, they were among the ten most influential artists, but in 2010 they decided to leave.

DW: In 2010 you emigrated from Russia. In your interviews, you’ve said that you’ve hit the roof there and don’t see the possibility of further development. What prevented you from working and developing in Russia?

Dmitry Vrubel: I keep thinking how true what we said then. Marat Gelman had a personal exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Perm, our works are in the Tretyakov Gallery, we were among the ten most influential Russian artists. Something more interesting could have been achieved. We started to travel and watch a lot between 2007 and 2010. It was during this period that the restoration of my work “Brotherly Kiss” on the Berlin Wall began. We thought that the opportunities that exist here for an artist’s independent development are a little greater than in Russia.

Timofeeva victory: In the late 2000s, we started working with large formats and we tried to go out, take large photos, but several times we were faced with a ban on showing them, because in Russia all photos displayed in open space were under the law of advertising and offered us to buy an advertising spot. It seemed to us that this is easy to work with in Berlin, that there is freedom here, that you can draw on the walls. And this also became the reason for the increased interest in the city.

– Dmitry, you publicly criticize what the Russian state is doing in the field of contemporary art. At the same time, you also criticize those who participate in state-supported projects, in particular, participants in the exhibition “Real Russia: Habitat”. From your point of view, is cooperation with an authoritarian state in the field of cultural projects immoral at this stage?

DV: The thing is, when you mentioned this exhibition, which was inaugurated by the Minister of Culture Medinsky and some other people there in the old Museum of the Revolution, it seemed to me that artists who were dear to the authorities had just been nominated, that this art supports this government. . I see with some inner eye that the next exhibition could be an exhibition of those artists she doesn’t support.

– Dmitry left my question, so I’ll ask Victoria. Is it immoral to cooperate now with Russia as a state in the field of culture?

VT: I think Dmitry left because the question is quite complicated and he definitely won’t be very competent at answering it. From the sphere of contemporary art, two topics are taken – they are taboo – namely politics and religion. And if we talk about immorality, the existence of such supposedly real art, at least castrated, discredits all contemporary art as such. And here for me the question is immoral or not.

DK: I think after all the answer is – immoral, and the second answer – I assume some sort of option, in which there can be a step over it. Well, yes, immoral, but what can you do.

– There are several cultural figures who continue to work in Russia and are obliged to work with the authorities, because this is, in fact, their only source of income. And they are not politicized, they do not consider themselves obliged to participate in public life and to have this or that civic position. You called the participants of the exhibition “Contemporary Art: Habitat” hungweibings art. So you blame everyone who participates there?

DV: Jeanne, you know, this is not censorship, this is fear. This is fear of animals. I was born in 1960, my mother was born in exile in Tyumen. I never saw my grandfather because he was killed in 1937. My other grandfather worked in the Gulag system and the NKVD. From childhood, I was raised in the spirit that you just have to be afraid of everything, as my great-grandfather was a white officer. I learned of its existence when I was 44 years old. When I see that a relatively new government is following the same path, I immediately wonder what will happen. Because it’s gone. Someone rightly wrote that Russia does not live in the future, but in the past, and that we must constantly look back. And I see a lot of colleagues who look into the eyes and mouth of a semi-literate person who calls himself the Minister of Culture of Russia and believes that such a development of things is correct.

Maybe they don’t think so?

DV: No, wait a minute, then I look at their Facebook, what and how they write about us. Just give these artists the opportunity, and they will be the organizers of the “Degenerate Art” exhibition. There will be no need for Medinsky and Milonov, they will simply say that it is better to go there … not to shoot these comrades, but to the rubbish pit, the rubbish heap. They kind of write about all the art that we’re related to, which isn’t just yesterday’s art, but it’s art for trash. These are the Red Guards.

– There are still several artists who did not touch the political theme either before Putin or during Putin. And they continue to cooperate with the state. Are they doing something wrong too?

DV: One of the properties of contemporary art is criticality. There is classical and salon art, which either describes some forms of beauty or works with some models and tries to imitate them, and there is contemporary art, which has many different functions. But one of its inherent functions is criticism. Not just art criticism, but political and social criticism. The absence of this element is the deprivation of the eggs of contemporary art.

– Dmitry, you think that now cooperation with the state is immoral. I know that your son Mikhail Vrubel works with Fyodor Bondarchuk. He was the producer of the movie “Attraction”, which was a great success. The movie “Attraction” received a lot of government funding. Fyodor Bondarchuk is not only a director, but also a public figure. He participated in the flash mob “Kadyrov is a patriot of Russia” after the Chechnya chief posted a photo of Mikhail Kasyanov and Vladimir Kara-Murza in an optical sight on his Instagram. This is my question.

DV: This question bothers me personally. This is that terrible dream I didn’t want to be in. That’s what I read in my childhood about the 30’s about the separation of families, about how the father denounced the son, the son denounced the father. And I treated it like literature all my adult life. This is one of the answers to your question.

– Have you already talked to Mikhail about this matter?

DV: No, oddly enough, I practically don’t talk about politics with older children, because politics is enough in our social activities. Second, as if everything was clear.

– What is clear?

DV: It is clear what we said about our colleagues.

– Do I understand correctly that children do not share your political opinions?

DV: They are not related. But they went to the demonstrations, which were still there after Bolotnaya. You see, it is very difficult for me to talk about this subject, extremely difficult. And I’m not going to say to them: Guys, let’s filter some things, because one thing is moral and another is not moral. Who am I to tell them?

– But you still call an indefinite circle of people hanging art. That’s why I asked this question.

DV: Naturally. Among those people I called the art hungweibings, there are many of our acquaintances and very good ones. And what’s worse is that many of them are artists who personally made me an artist in the 70’s and 80’s. I mean, it’s a terrible tragedy. Thank goodness my older kids haven’t participated in this flash mob yet, which Bondarchuk did. And what happens here – we go back to the first question. Those are the conditions of survival if I want to make a film, and that film is not an art film, it is not a festival film, but a film that brings in money. I want to be normal, for example, a film producer. I do not have a choice. Also, in the case of the artist, we took it and left. And here we have a status, perhaps higher than there, in Russia. And in the case of a film producer, where will you go? In Hollywood, everywhere is busy and there’s only one place where you can be competitive.

– That is, do you still treat such situations with understanding?

DV: Yes, of course, with understanding. But I don’t know what to expect from that. As long as our family is okay. But we know that this government, this system, has already created cracks in many families.

– If you are asked to draw the end of Putinism, what will this image or this art object look like and what place will you choose for it? I am, of course, asking this in relation to Brotherly Kiss, one of his most famous works.

DV: Good question. My friend Sasha Lukin, who has now become an anti-Americanist, and I sat down in 1988 and created the following scenario for perestroika: burning the latest issue of Ogonyok magazine in Red Square, public execution of the foremen of perestroika, and so on. But at the same time, we also arrived at an optimistic scenario, which included Solzhenitsyn’s meeting at Sheremetyevo airport, the declaration of independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with the raising of the flag, and so on, which partially came true. , partially did not materialize. We haven’t thought about it yet (about the end of Putinism. – Ed.). But with your permission, let’s start thinking about it. This is a nice futuristic theme.

VT: Beginning (Putinism. – Ed.) we draw, therefore, we will also draw the end in any case, if God allows us to live until this moment.

– If you haven’t decided what you’re going to do, then where?

DV: The first major exhibition of Russian contemporary art should be in the Lubyanka, as in the Stasi buildings. Lubyanka is set to become the biggest artistic occupation in the world. But first you need to get all these documents out of the Reich Chancellery to file.

VT: This is an interesting time, because now many artists, including those who were interested in political and religious themes, say, “Well, no, we’re not interested in anything. It’s not at all interesting to work in the field of politics.” I wonder how many people will start to be interested in politics and religion again.

The conversation took place in 2017 and today is published again without changes.

Full version of the interview: